Every day, hundreds of aircraft fly across oceans or other airspace that is not monitored by radar. Aircraft fly within designated routes at predefined altitudes, or flight levels. A flight level indicates an altitude in hundreds of feet according to a standard pressure datum. For example, flight level (FL) 310 indicates an altitude of 31,000 feet, while FL 280 indicates an altitude of 28,000 feet. Often, pilots will want to select a cruise altitude that will optimize the performance of the aircraft in some manner. For example, the wind direction and velocity may vary between the available flight levels along the route that the aircraft is flying. The pilot may want to take advantage of a tailwind at a particular flight level to consume less fuel, which consequently may lower operating costs and reduce environmentally harmful emissions, and/or to decrease the flight time to the destination airport.
A problem when flying these oceanic routes is that due to the lack of radar coverage, the position updates must be regularly sent to an air traffic control (ATC) facility that is in communication with the aircraft at any given time. The pilots typically do not have a big picture of the traffic that is surrounding them at any given time. Any requests for changes in flight levels must be relayed to ATC, and often through multiple personnel or facilities until an accurate depiction of the surrounding traffic is determined and a decision can be made by the controller. More often than not, the request for a flight level change is denied for traffic reasons. For this reason, pilots often stop asking, which leads to inefficiencies and delays.
Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) technology allows ADS-B equipped aircraft to receive flight information broadcast directly from other ADS-B equipped aircraft. This information may include identification, position, altitude, directional data, and other flight data corresponding to the current flight conditions of the broadcasting aircraft. However, while this data is useful in assisting a pilot and ATC with valuable traffic information, the pilot must still spend time analyzing the constantly changing data in order to make a determination as to whether a flight level change would possible in light of the current traffic environment.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the disclosure made herein is presented.